Gospel Teachings: Choices and Consequences

Choices and Consequences

May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

I have been thinking recently about choices. It has been said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. The choices we make determine our destiny.

When we left our premortal existence and entered mortality, we brought with us the gift of agency. Our goal is to obtain celestial glory, and the choices we make will, in large part, determine whether or not we reach our goal.

Most of you are familiar with Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You will remember that she comes to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. As she contemplates which way to turn, she is confronted by the Cheshire Cat, of whom Alice asks, “Which path shall I follow?”

The cat answers, “That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter which path you take.”1

Unlike Alice, we know where we want to go, andit does matter which way we go, for the path we follow in this life leads to our destination in the next life.

May we choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary—a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right. Without such faith, we go nowhere. With it, we can accomplish our goals.

Although it is imperative that we choose wisely, there are times when we will make foolish choices. The gift of repentance, provided by our Savior, enables us to correct our course settings, that we might return to the path which will lead us to that celestial glory we seek.

May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.

As we contemplate the decisions we make in our lives each day—whether to make this choice or that choice—if we choose Christ, we will have made the correct choice.

That this may ever be so is my heartfelt and humble prayer in the name of Jesus Christ.

All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator. ~Alma 30:44

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; For in him we live, and move, and have our being; … for we are also his offspring. ~Saint Paul, Acts 17: 24,28

There is a God, and he hath created all things. ~2 Nephi 2:14

Darwin was aware of gaps in his theory. . . Even Darwin recognized his life’s work as a theory and left the door ajar. ~Keith Merrill

Evolution has a lot of holes filled with Silly Putty, but the one gaping wound they cannot hide is the Moral Law. ~Keith Merrill

Charles Darwin loved his wife and children. He paid his taxes and never kicked his dog. But Charles Darwin had a big idea, and ideas have consequences. ~movie: ”What Hath Darwin Wrought?”